Mrs Crimble's Innovate Now Scheme for Student Fundraisers

In 2015, our corporate partner Mrs Crimble's launched Innovate Now, a scheme which helps university RAG teams put on exciting fundraising events. Read on to learn more about the scheme and find out which universities came out on top after a day of pitching.

Our corporate partner Mrs Crimble’s have been the official sponsor of Breast Cancer Now’s student fundraisers since 2013, providing branded merchandise and delicious gluten free treats to support their fundraising efforts.

As part of the sponsorship programme, in 2015 Breast Cancer Now and Mrs Crimble’s launched the Innovate Now scheme. This ‘Dragon’s Den’ style scheme offers university RAG societies the opportunity to compete for the prize of seed funding in order to deliver a more ambitious fundraising event than they would otherwise be able to.

The aim of the scheme is to increase students’ interest in active fundraising involvement and help to raise additional vital funds for Breast Cancer Now. Mrs Crimble’s has always been a supporter of entrepreneurial spirit and were thrilled to be able to support the scheme and offer participating students the chance to benefit from their business mentoring.

In December, applications to the scheme were whittled down to a shortlist of five university RAGS who were asked to come and present their pitch in full to a formidable panel of judges made up of Breast Cancer Now and Mrs Crimble’s staff members.

Teams from Nottingham, Loughborough, Plymouth, Southampton and Brunel Universities had 25 minutes to impress the judges with their ideas who were marking each team on key criteria such as finance, marketing, logistics and sustainability. The calibre of ideas put forward was fantastic and the judges were very impressed with the high level of creativity and thought put into each presentation.

And the winner is...

After a long day in the boardroom, students had a nail-biting wait to find out who would win the funding until it was announced the next day. After much deliberating, the judges decided to award all five universities with funding for their events as each team offered such unique opportunities to fundraise for Breast Cancer Now in an innovative way.

The students’ pitches covered a range of fundraising ideas including a murder mystery event, a music festival and even a naked calendar! Their events will be held in 2016 and we can’t wait to see how they get on - we'll be sharing how the events went later in the year.

Breast Cancer Now and the students would like to say a big thank you to Mrs Crimble’s for their support of Innovate Now, we are looking forward to more exciting fundraising ideas in the future!